


Stargazers

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: In his dreams, Noctis made spaceships to travel across the cosmos. He used to travel them alone. Now, every dream of outer space has Nyx in the co-pilot seat next to him.





	Stargazers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LogicDive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicDive/gifts).

> happy birthday, kai!

“Think we’ll ever get to see the stars?”

“We’re… looking at them right now, Noct.”

“Right,” Noctis laughed, rolling his eyes. “I meant the collective ‘we.’ Like, do you think we’ll ever make spaceships and see what’s out there?”

“Like in the movies?” Nyx chuckled, bemused. He clicked his tongue against his teeth, returning his eyes skyward. “I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine.”

Someone, somewhere, thought it was easy to imagine, though. Filmmakers had been bringing their fantasies about space travel to Noct’s screen since long before he was born. In his childhood dreams, it was effortless. Sometimes he would build himself a gleaming ship of adamantite like he was molding wet clay, conjuring a great vessel from nothing to blast up into the cosmos. Sometimes he dreamed that it was just himself in space, with no walls between his body and the scatterings of stardust that glittered on to infinity.

The heroes in his favorite games made it look like magic. And magic he could do! Easily! With all of his powers, who was to say he couldn’t warp himself straight out of the stratosphere to explore the stars? (Plenty of people, actually. They told him _exactly_ why he couldn’t do that.) Nevertheless, Noctis guided his computerized spaceships through endless galaxies in breathless anticipation of the next planet he could land on, or the next comet he had to avoid, or the next enemy vessel he needed to destroy.

“You planning on starting a space program when you’re king?”

Nyx nudged his arm, coaxing Noctis down from the stars and back to Eos. Noct sighed through his nose, then shook his head. “Nah. There’s still too much to fix on this world.”

For now, this was the closest he would get to see the stars. High atop the Citadel – where Cor had warned him a thousand times he was not allowed to go – yes, even if he was the Prince – gave him the best view of the sky over Insomnia. He couldn’t see anything from the ground, not even in the sprawling, spacious parks with their sentinel walls of trees blotting out the city lights. If he wanted to look at the stars, he wanted to look at all of them, and he was not above abusing his royal privileges to do it.

“Wish you didn’t have to be the one to fix it, little king,” Nyx said, lifting Noct’s hand to his face to rest a kiss against his cold knuckles on this crisp autumn night.

“Someone has to. And Dad’s done enough.”

The Wall rippled and waved above them, breathing in time with the sleeping king in his rooms, a hundred floors below them. The kingdom had demanded too much from his father too soon after he’d been crowned, Noctis had learned as he grew up. He read old newspaper articles from the royal archives, and needled tentative tidbits from Cor and Clarus about the state of Lucis at the time. With all of his terrestrial obligations, Regis had little time to gaze up at the stars and hope there was someplace better beyond them.

Noctis was afraid he wouldn’t have the time, either, whenever he ascended the throne in his father’s place. He feared the things he wouldn’t be able to do just as much as the things he would have to do. It would be harder to take these midnight escapes up to the roof, for one. It would be harder still to take them with his secret, Kingsglaive lover – and a Galahdian, no less. That was one of the things he had to fix first when he was king, the trepidation his people felt for the immigrants coming to Insomnia.

“One day, Noct,” Nyx promised, tucking his chin into Noct’s hair. “I’ll show you the stars.”

“That’s a pretty tall order for you, hero.”

“Don’t worry. At least I can reach them.”

“Really?” Noctis chuckled. “A crack about my height? Low blow, Nyx.”

“I know. Had to go pretty far down to make it.”

Noctis shoved a palm against his chest, biting his lip so he didn’t laugh and validate Nyx’s jokes. He had to hold out, on behalf of short people everywhere. He had to set the example and stand up for his people, as future King of Lucis. Six, he hoped he wasn’t going to be the shortest king in history. Well, at least he’d have some pretty broad shoulders to stand on if he was.

Nyx was his whole universe, a limitless blanket of light and dark that wrapped around him on their nightly studies of the constellations. He was a part of those space-faring dreams now, floating alongside him with hands entwined. They drifted past star clusters both old and new, Nyx plucking the brightest ones to offer to Noctis like precious gems to place in his crown.

Exploring the stars used to be a lonely dream. It used to be his escape from all of his earthly expectations, a place where he could get lost for an eternity, where no one could find him to anchor him back to the throne. Now, he couldn’t imagine those dreams without Nyx next to him, painting their imaginary spaceship in Galahdian violets and Lucian blacks. If they were going to meet extraterrestrial life, in his dreams, Nyx said, “I want the first colors they see to be the two of ours. Let the whole universe know that we belong together.”

“You never know, Noct,” Nyx said now, tucking the weathered blanket they shared around them as the wind lilted across the rooftop. “We made ships for the sea, then ships for the skies. Maybe spaceships are right around the corner.”

“If they are, be the first one to test it out with me?”

“Hell no!” Nyx laughed. “We’re not going in a prototype. I’ll wait until they iron out all the kinks and there’s no chance we’ll implode in the vacuum of space. _Then_, we’ll go. Pack a romantic picnic among the stars and everything.”

“You want to bring the first Galahdian food into space, don’t you?”

“What better way to welcome the aliens to Eos?”

“Your food will incinerate the poor things! They’ll think it’s an act of aggression.”

“I’ve always said the world wasn’t ready for Galahdian food. I was hoping another world would be.”

Noctis laughed, lazy and content. Maybe on another world, there were no kings or glaives. On another world, there were no Lucians or Galahdians or empires or politics that muddled them all together. On another world, far amidst the stars, they could have the universe to themselves. For now, that distant planet where they could just be Nyx and Noct, without all of the duties and titles tagged onto their names, remained in his dreams.

For now, the world he curled up next to, hidden beneath the stars over Eos, was more than enough for him.


End file.
